Our flight to Hobart was via Melbourne and when we landed in the Victorian capital it was one of those rare events where some of the passengers applaud after touchdown. There had been a tiny touch of turbulence as we initially descended through the clouds but nothing that really warranted a quick dose of the clap, and no major incident on-board during the flight either (thankfully). Our touchdown into Hobart was totally without cheer though – perhaps due to the massive thud we experienced as we hit the runway. Interestingly, neither of us recall having been on a plane before that has completed a 3 point turn on the runway – so a new experience achieved as the plane turned around back in the direction we had just landed!
A trip to the Art Gallery & Museum was good with some great exhibits and history about both the Aboriginals and the first landings and settlement of the convicts. Just walking around Hobart on a wet Summers day soon makes you realise what a tough environment those men and women found themselves in when they arrived. That is of course if they survived the journey out from Blighty. Many of those 'convicts' were sent out because they were living in poverty and stealing was literally a survival for them and/or their families unlike the lifestyle occupation it seems to be today. Don't get us wrong however – we know some really bad guys were sent out too.
Our hostel in Hobart was an interesting one in the heart of the Central Business District and a large old building converted for low/ no frills accommodation. There were consequently plenty of creaky floorboards along the corridor – or perhaps just outside our room. We don't remember seeing an exercise vault outside our room before we went to bed, but it seemed like someone was using the floor as a spring board just for the purpose of propelling themselves over such a piece of equipment each morning as soon as daylight crept through the curtains.
In Hobart we picked up a little red Stan (Getz, by Hyundai) that would transport us on the remainder of our trip round Tassie. On route to our first overnight stay we stopped in a place called Ross that had certainly seem better days in terms of population, businesses and tourism. A pretty little place, but really remote and many of the remaining shops up for sale together with the ones that had closed down. We visited a 'women's factory' whilst there – essentially a place for the female convicts either waiting to be sold on to locals as slaves, er we mean servants and also a place for them to be sent back if they had caused trouble – which mainly seemed to be 'allowing' themselves to have got pregnant with an 'illegitimate' child. There was a particularly harrowing story of one young women who had found herself in the situation where she had fallen on the wrong side of the son of one of the houses she had been working in. With child, she was sent straight back to the factory floor (incidentally where many of the women probably also found themselves on the wrong side of some of the staff there). Tragically during the time of the 'factories' in Tasmania 900 of the 1200 children who were born to 'factory women' died within a short time of being born – recently there was a very moving and powerful work of art of babys bonnets to remember and symbolise the events.
As we drove towards our next destination – Bicheno we heard reports on the radio that a place called St Helens was suffering flash flooding from the weather system that has recently wreaked havoc throughout Australia and roads were being closed. A quick check on the map and it was less than 70km's further North from Bicheno. As we travelled on, the weather got worse very, very quickly and we managed to cross a couple of bridges where rivers were raging below, having already burst their banks. There was a lot of standing water in fields in the distance and we wondered whether it had been a good idea not to take out the additional insurance on Stan as the excess was A$3300.00. When we got to Bicheno, we were relieved to see that at least the hostel was towards the top of a coastal hill.
Whilst at Bicheno, we managed to witness the four seasons in one day syndrome as one morning we took a coastal walk and got battered to wotsits and returned to our room to dry out and then in the late afternoon returned to the sea to see a mightily impressive blow hole whilst having the backs of our legs burnt in the sunshine.
Thankfully the weather remained better for the remainder of our stay which meant that we were able to take advantage of a visit to Freycinet National Park and a walk to Wine Glass Bay and back. When we got to the beach on the bay itself we were rewarded by the site of a wallaby cheekily trying to beg for food from the sunbathers. The walk involved several gradients so we managed to walk off a few calories from our Christmas excesses and boy it was hot!
On to Launceston and it appeared to be a much more accessible city than Hobart. Not sure about the monkey enclosure in the local park but the monkeys on both sides of the glass seemed to be pretty pleased with each other. A walk along the river and into Cataract Gorge illustrated the power of the water from the recent days as it thundered down the valley wanting to escape to sea. The day before we did the walk ourselves a couple had been swimming in what were low waters and were resting on a boulder when the tidal surge of water from the mountains came rocketing through and left them stranded until a helicopter came to their rescue – front page news in Launceston! We could see the aftermath with the water still powering through and it had completely submerged an outside swimming pool in it's wake. After the water related excitement we visited the local museum which had an interactive science exhibition for kids – it kept us entertained for a good few hours.
Our drive back to Hobart took us up into the central mountains and past the lakes giving us impressive views of the scenery and wildlife. Helen spotted an echidna as we whizzed past in Stan, but sadly we also saw quite a bit of road kill – several wallabies but also a massive wombat. We rejoined the main road South at a place called Melton Mowbray and there wasn't a Aussie pie in sight – not even a pork one.
We signed the car back off at Hobart airport and survived not having to part with any cash for the A$3300.00 insurance excess, but as we were sitting on the plane we realised that sadly David's headphones that had been repaired and bought out all the way from Blighty were safely stored in a pocket in the boot of Stan. Hopefully the car hire company will come up trumps in getting them back to us though...
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